Practical Application of Statistics in Sports
by coleytaylor
Summary: [Britta x Slater] Apparently, when you search TripAdvisor for family activities in the Greendale area, the first thing that comes up is the minor league baseball team, the Greendale County Fat Dogs. At least, that's what Annie says, and Britta can't check; she swore never to go on TripAdvisor again after it gave only two stars to her favorite vegan café. / posted to ao3 10/3/16


Annie, ever the planner, takes it upon herself to arrange an activity so that the study group can get comfortable with Jeff's new girlfriend. Even though they all already know her. And even though they're not actually a family getting used to its new mother. Britta's very uncomfortable with that metaphor, given her history with Jeff, and the way that she looks at Slater, but Annie has decided to run with it.

Apparently, when you search TripAdvisor for family activities in the Greendale area, the first thing that comes up is the minor league baseball team, the Greendale County Fat Dogs. At least, that's what Annie says, and Britta can't check; she swore never to go on TripAdvisor again after it gave only two stars to her favorite vegan café.

On the car ride up, Jeff insists on playing Dave Matthews Band the entire time, probably to impress Slater. He has one hand on the wheel, the other perched on the gear shift. To look cool. To impress Slater. He looks like an idiot: what is he going to do, shift into reverse in the middle of the highway?

Britta wants to give Jeff crap about it—starts to, even—but she bites it back. Because god forbid someone mistakes it for flirting, or jealousy, and she is so done with this.

When they get into the stadium, she ends up sitting with Slater on one side, and Pierce on the other, as they settle into their sticky plastic chairs, because she doesn't have it in her to fight over seating arrangements. Abed has to sit next to Troy, and Annie has to sit next to him, and Shirley wants to show Annie pictures of her kids, and Pierce wants to make gross comments to Shirley in between pitches. It's familiar, and maybe on a different day it would be cute, but today it's just grating.

"Hey, do you want—"

"What," Britta snarls at Slater, then swallows, and remembers that she's supposed to be making nice. "I mean, what?"

"I'm going to get something to eat, do you want to come?"

Britta could launch into a monologue about the ethics of ballpark food, about the cows and the pigs that had to suffer for the hamburgers and hot dogs. She could scoff at Slater's perfect face. She could be a regular person, a good friend to Jeff, and go with her.

"Sure," she decides, slinging her purse over her shoulder and getting up.

Slater chooses a concession stand, and they get on line. The variety at this ballpark isn't exactly what Britta had to choose from at the one Yankees game she attended when she lived in New York, but their sausages and sodas are nearly as overpriced.

They've been standing on line in silence for a couple of minutes, long enough so that they could conceivably have been looking at the menu, when Slater breaks the silence.

"Not to be a statistics professor, but the on base percentage is much better measure of a player's worth than his batting average," she says, shrugging at Britta like they're friends.

"Don't."

Slater's eyebrows arch, but she can't seem to find what to say.

Britta sighs. "We don't have to like each other. Jeff wanted to fuck me, now he's fucking you. I'm not Annie; we don't have to be friends."

Britta turns around, pretending to look at the menu again. Slater puts her hand on her shoulder to get her attention, and Britta tries to hide how much it makes her jump. She can't feel Slater's fingers through her sweater, but she can imagine them. Cool, slender fingers on her shoulder; holding a piece of chalk in front of a class rapt with attention; tangled in her hair— it's great that she's such an LGBT ally, but these thoughts are not really useful right now. She rearranges her features into a scowl to hear what Slater has to say.

"It's your turn."

It is. A man in an apron and a visor fixes her with an impatient look, and she orders a veggie burger wrapped in tinfoil that she will only later discover also contains a wad of chewed gum.

It's not worth taking it back to the concession stand to complain, or get something else to eat. She plans to throw it away covertly, not make a scene, but Slater happens to be looking at her instead of Jeff (hunched over his phone, as usual), or the Fat Dogs' manager, who has been on the field arguing with an umpire over some call for at least ten minutes. Britta hastily shoves the tinfoil-wrapped burger into her purse, and she's pretty sure Slater's going to give her shit for it, but she doesn't.

"Do you want the rest of this?" Slater says, holding out a carton of fries. Britta stares at them for a moment, and then nods, because she's pretty sure if she said she wasn't hungry, her stomach would growl and give her away. That's exactly the kind of day she's been having.

Britta finishes the fries by the bottom of the sixth inning (the score is 6-7 Hacky Sacks, Pierce tells her, like she is supposed to care), and takes this as an opportunity to throw away her hidden veggie burger as well.

She gets back in time for the (customary, judging by the fact that it also happened at the Yankees game) seventh inning stretch rendition of Take Me Out to the Ballgame. Everyone in the stands is on their feet, singing, hoping to catch a Fat Dogs t-shirt from the cannon being fired by, you guessed it, the fat dog mascot himself. It's all a bit too much.

When the song ends, Britta can't help herself. " _Bring your kids, bring your wife?_ Come on!" she yells to no one in particular. "So only men can like baseball?"

"Men aren't the only people who can have wives," Slater offers. What? First of all, okay, she's right. And secondly, what? Britta must be reading something seriously wrong, because it looks a lot like Slater is smirking at her.

"Yeah..." Britta says, and looks over at Jeff. She gets how Twitter could be more interesting than a minor league baseball game, but more interesting than talking to Slater? No way.

This is much too nice of a moment. They're not friends, they don't need to be friends, Britta reminds herself. She stares at the jumbotron, where they're showing ads for a local fencing company. The ad ends, and the Kiss Cam comes on. Britta groans. More heterosexual romance shoved in her face. Not that she, personally, is interested in any other type of romance. But she's certainly not interested in this blatant heteronormativity and the effects it will have on the next generation of LGBT kids.

The Cam focuses on a few couples across the stadium, before it falls on Slater and Jeff. Britta's also in the picture, and seeing her own scowl broadcasted on the jumbotron only makes it set deeper on her face. She watches as Slater taps Jeff on the shoulder.

"Hold on, Babe, let me finish this tweet," he mutters.

Slater turns to Britta, a questioning look in her eyes, and who is Britta to say no? She isn't exactly fond of Slater, but she's not going to embarrass her with rejection in front of all these minor league baseball fans. And kissing her isn't exactly a terrible sacrifice to make...

Britta's just going to kiss Slater for as long as the Kiss Cam is on them. Except, her eyes are closed, so she can't tell. It's probably better to keep kissing her, just in case. Slater's fingers wind up in her hair, and they feel as good as she imagined.

Britta hears a pointed cough from somewhere in front of her. Her eyes snap open, and she jerks away from Slater, and it's Jeff, and the Kiss Cam has long since moved on. She blushes, and turns away. Slater can deal with this. Michelle? Britta just stuck her tongue down her throat; they should probably be on a first name basis.

"As hot as that was, didn't we just have the exclusivity talk?" Britta can't tune out Jeff's voice.

"Yeah, it's over," Michelle says. Did Britta just cause a lesbian awakening? Wait, did she just have her own lesbian awakening?

"Britta?" Michelle holds out her hand. Taking it seems like the right thing to do. Slater pulls her up, and they stalk off together. They can't leave the ballpark without the others, so Britta has no idea where Michelle is taking her, but she follows, anyway. They stop in a small alcove on the top floor.

"Is it _statistically unlikely_ that people will find us here?" Britta says. Maybe she shouldn't be mocking the girl that's about to make out with her, but whatever. Michelle can take her as she is.


End file.
